Lesson Plan for 2013-12-09: Guard Break and Stack Pass

This is the foundational guard break and pass combination that is core fundamentals, yet I routinely see guys executing these in a very sloppy fashion.

For the life of me, I have never figured out if this closed guard break has a name. It’s that basic. This is the default thing that is taught to someone when they go to their first private class or they go to their first open mat and ask an upper belt what to do when inside the closed guard.

Seriously. Have I mentioned that this is a fundamental move? I’ll also cover the multitude of things that I see people do wrong when they do this guard break, and if there’s time, I’ll explain how you can bait someone into thinking you are doing a bad implementation of this when in fact you are never in any serious danger. It’s baiting that will work well into blue belt, and even higher depending on the circumstance. If they don’t take the bait seriously, there’s followup techniques that utilize the baiting position to continue to open the guard for different passes. You could do nothing but work this one guard break every time you are in closed guard, and your game would improve dramatically compared to trying out different standing or fancy guard breaks.

As for the stack pass, this is an area where it’s easy to be sloppy and think you are doing it right. At higher levels, those bad habits you built up as a white belt come back to haunt you and you find out that what used to be a simple bully move is now turned against you in a most unpleasant way.